


doves and snowfall

by charcoalcas



Series: revelations [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 11:12:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3808243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalcas/pseuds/charcoalcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>we're making it up as we go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	doves and snowfall

The mother had requested that they wait in another room. They hadn't argued, of course; regardless of how confident Lily is in her decision, it would be hard to say goodbye when others are celebrating hello.

They've been at the hospital for a few hours - first in the waiting room, then the cafeteria, though neither of them did much but pick at their respective muffins and fruit cups, then the waiting room again. Finally they had been ushered into a hospital room and the waiting had truly begun.

Dean is antsy enough being in a hospital - the harsh glow of the lights, the starch white sheets and cold furniture, the constant whisper of worried voices. It's claustrophobic, making his nerves jumpy with bad memories even though they're in, as the nurse had cheerfully told them, the "good part" of the hospital. The part of Dean skeeved out by being here wars with the anxious joy and anticipation buzzing inside him because of why they're here. He paces the room and chews on his nails until they're stinging and stubby, bowlegs nearly buckling underneath him every time he thinks he hears someone coming.

Cas, on the other hand, is still as a statue. While Dean walks circles around him, Cas alternates between staring forlornly out of the window at the parking lot below them and collapsing in one of the two chairs, pinching his brow and reaching out to grab Dean's hand when he walks by. He takes his phone out sometimes to play games with Claire - she knows where they are and is kind enough to oblige Cas in Words with Friends while they wait. Dean catches him smiling softly at the screen and feels a brief respite from the tension squeezing his lungs and telling him he's going to ruin everything.

They're in the small room for an hour when Dean starts to panic because maybe Lily changed her mind, maybe something went wrong, maybe the nurses forgot about them - but Cas stands and wraps Dean in a hug, holds him tightly and crushes his face against Dean's neck. Dean feels the muscles in Cas' back loosen when he holds him too, knows Cas needs this as much as he does.

It's another twenty minutes until there's a quiet knock on the door.

Cas leaps to his feet and looks back at Dean, both of their eyes wide with shock. It's real, all of a sudden, and Dean's heart feels like it's jackhammering its way out of his ribcage He nods at Cas and walks to stand next to him. Their palms are both clammy when they come together; Cas squeezes Dean's hand when he calls out, "Come in."

The nurse from earlier pokes her head in. "Ready to meet her?"

Dean glances at Cas and sees a faint smile on his face and knows it's reflected on his own as reality slowly dawns on them both. "We're ready."

Dean feels dangerously close to passing out. The door slowly opens and a bassinet pushes through. The three nurses flanking it are beaming when they roll it to a stop before them.

They've been trying for five years, ever since Cas had divulged he wanted a family in an airport food court and Dean had kissed them both breathless. When the first adoption fell through, they weren't sure they could do this again. It was a rough time, made worse by the particularly unforgiving Vermont winter that year. The space that had been carved out for their child was gaping, the silence falling over the bed and breakfast like the flakes outside, icy and suffocating.

They got back in the saddle when the first flowers burst through the snow.

When Dean confessed his fears and anxieties about parenthood one early morning, Cas had inched closer beneath their acorn patterned sheets and taken his hands in his own. Their wedding rings were warm against their skin.

"Maybe we're not ready," Dean had whispered. "Maybe we're not supposed to have this, to be parents."

"Yeah, well," Cas sighed quietly, eyes fond as they traced his husband's face. "We're making it up as we go."

The words echo in Dean's ears as he looks into the bassinet. There, wrapped snugly in white blankets, sleeps a tiny baby girl. 

The nurses are saying something, the delivery went fine, the baby is healthy, but Dean doesn't hear them. He's on his knees, suddenly, hot tears spilling down his cheeks as looks at his daughter for the first time.

"She's perfect," he chokes out, hands shaking when they rise to grip the sides of her bed. "She's so perfect, Cas."

He looks above him to see Cas isn't faring much better, shoulders sagging and eyes pink and shining.

Distantly, Dean hears Cas ask if they can hold her. His voice is high and cracks all over the question, and when they answer yes, his palm is solid and burning where it comes to rest on Dean's shoulder, just as it had all those years ago.

Dean wipes his face on the back of his hand and stands as the nurses unwrap her from the cocoon of blankets she's nestled in. She starts squirming as soon as the warmth starts to diminish. Beside him, Cas is watching her movements with laser focus and unadulterated adoration. Her body is soft and warm when Dean slides his hands underneath her; this is familiar, at least, and he anchors himself in the motions until she's cradled in his arms.

There was a time he had believed these hands were meant for nothing more than destruction, crude extensions of the tool so many had tried to forge him into being. The same could be said for the man standing next to him, he knows, but here they are, a few more rules ripped up and rewritten. Now these hands hold his family to his chest, against the frantic beating of his heart, and gently brush the hair from his baby's pink face.

His thoughts must be evident when he tears his gaze away from his daughter to look at Cas because the first tear falls from Cas' eyes as his mouth opens and closes around words left unspoken, perhaps untranslatable, and he wraps an arm around Dean's shoulders and pulls him close to press a kiss to Dean's cheek, to his forehead, to his temple, where it lingers and his lips tremble.

Cas wipes at his eyes and nods emphatically when Dean asks if he wants to hold her. 

Without the hesitation Cas seemed to be fearing, she nuzzles under his chin and yawns against his neck. Cas can feel her soft breath puffing on his skin, the minute expansions and contractions of her chest when he carefully places a hand against her back. She is so small against him, so vulnerable, and the world seems so large before him now as he holds her though he has flown across galaxies and watched suns collapse.

"We will always love you," he whispers, turning his face so his cheek is pressed against her downy hair. "We will always protect you."

The tears come then, fast and hard, and he rocks her gently against him and wonders how he will ever let go.

Dean takes Cas' hand from her back to pepper kisses across his knuckles, press them into his palm, on his wrist, his fingers, lip catching on the gold band that has rested there since a cool September morning.

They say goodbye eventually, they have to, and it is the first of many to come. It will never get any easier. They stand pressed together as they watch the bassinet disappear around the corner and turn into each other's arms as soon as the door closed. They stay like that for a while, quiet and safe and loved, pulling away only incrementally to rest their foreheads together and speak silently in that language only they know.

Two days later the impala pulls to a stop outside of the charming bed and breakfast in Vermont, a soft green, plaid patterned car seat buckled safely next to Cas in the back. The welcome banner they had painted a few days earlier and hung over the veranda blows gently in the wind.

A dove hops in the snow on their porch and coos at them as they unlock the door. Dean thinks of his mother, then takes Cas' hand and brings Mary home.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr.


End file.
